One of these is about the bodysnatchers of Alderley Edge. In the 19th century, the medical schools needed human bodies in order to train student doctors properly. Sometimes, unscrupulous people dug up bodies which had recently been buried, and sold them secretly to the medical schools. This happened once in Alderley Edge, as Brian Hobson tells us.

　　“There’d been a funeral of a lady and a girl and they ( ie the bodysnatchers) must have visited the churchyard, they’d got these two bodies on a hand cart and were taking them to Manchester. And they’d had great difficulty because the grave kept collapsing on them and it had taken them longer than what they thought to get down the road, and they got as far as Whitebarn and it became daylight. So in a field at the side of Whitebarn, there they dug a hole, put them (ie the bodies) in with the idea coming back next day to carry on. Well in the mean time whoever it was was living at Whitebarn Farm at the time, he come down the field and he noticed the soil had been disturbed and he thought poachers had been that night and buried the pheasants in there. So he started unearthing it and he found a bag, put his hand in and come out with a handful of hair. So they laid in wait for this gang to come back and there was three of them, they caught two of them, one escaped over the fields towards Chorley Hall, and they got the other two. The only thing they could take them to Court on was the fact that they’d nicked (ie stolen) a wedding ring off the woman’s finger. I’ve got all that documented as well, a beautiful story.”

　　MH: “This would be for dissection would it?”

　　BH: “Yes, they used to sell the bodies at Manchester University or wherever.”

　　This recording is made available by kind permission of the copyright holders, Manchester Museum and the National Trust.